Over the course of three days we watched all three of the Jurassic Park films AND the first Jurassic World movie.

We also “hatched” our own mini dinos, which I purchase in the Target dollar section. (NB: The Target dollar section is responsible for at least $200 a year in dumb purchases of junk I do NOT need.) While at Target we also purchased Cinco the full set of Jurassic World, dino themed, Hot Wheels. (Because, you know everyone needs a Triceratops shaped Hot Wheel.)

The best part of our Dino Days was Cinco’s idea to make our own Dino themed board game!!!! Drawing the game board was Cinco’s project while The Princess and I worked on the game board pieces. Each player chooses a tiny dino egg which she and I hand painted.

The basic rules are as follows:

The oldest person goes first and rolls the dice. (Get doubles and roll again!)

Depending on which square you land on, you choose a corresponding card. (Red=Danger, Yellow=Challenge, Green=Lucky Day, White=No Card).

Then you follow the directions on the card.

When your turn is over the next person rolls.

First person to escape wins!

As you can imagine, the Danger cards are bad luck, Challenge could go either way, and Lucky Day is, of course, something good. Here are a few of the cards the kids came up with:

AS you have no doubt figured out, The Princess is a Girl Scout. This summer each girl in the troop is spending a week with Flat Juliette. She is the Girl Scout equivalent to Flat Stanley, only she is Juliette Gordon Low (founder of American Girl Scouts).

Juliette’s First Day: Relaxing in pool, followed by a top-off Jeep ride and dinner at a Vegas Classic, Bob Taylor’s Ranch House.

Juliette’s Second Day: Another Jeep ride this time to Mount Charleston to commune with nature as the real Juliette might have done. She also enjoyed a breezy mountain side afternoon lunch and a few rounds of Cinco’s new favorite game– Coup.

Juliette’s Third Day: We planned take her to the Welcome to Las Vegas sign. But when we drove by in the morning and again in the afternoon, we decided the line was just TOO long.

In between drive -bys, we took her to Shark Reef on the Vegas Strip inside Mandalay bay. She got the chance to explore the water’s wildlife and learn about the arctic at the Polar Experience.

Back at the house, we watched a family movie. I kept suggesting Jaws or even the Poseidon Adventure. But, the kids said the Poseidon Adventure sounded a lot like the Titanic only worse and over ruled me on Jaws as well. Though they did recall seeing the Jaws shark at the Universal Studios tour — two summers ago at MOM CAMP!!! So we settled on the film version of Roald Dahl’s Matilda (we will be going to the musical version in August).

We started out with a kinda cool cloud art project. It is at the Techy Teacher if you want to give it a go on your own!

You take equal parts shaving cream and glue, mix it up and start painting your clouds.

Cinco and The Princess LOVE IT! When the pictures finally dried (and mind you, this takes a little while) they had a lovely texture–somewhere b/t silky and velvety. I couldn’t stop feeling the pictures.

But, beware it gets messy fast especially with a four-year old and a seven-year old. Cinco even got it on his nose! They got the cloud mix all over their hands and started making hand prints instead of clouds. Cute and why not, right? The mix washes off easily so its really no big deal.

I wanted them to add some food coloring to the mix to start making rain clouds or a sunset, but they were having too much fun. Still, I think you could add some food coloring in yellow and red to made different shades and see if you could create a sunset picture!

Clouds by The Princess

Clouds by Cinco

So next it was on to some weird science! On the net, I found a number of blogs suggesting you nuke Ivory soap. Really? Nuke it? I was a bit worried that this was going to set my microwave on fire–and we just bought a bought a new one less than four months go–. You can see why I was a tad nervous, right? But, I am sucker for a Mom Camp project and it fit so nicely with the cloud theme and if it worked it promised to be really cool. I got out a paper plate and we did it!

It was really cool. All of a sudden the Ivory soap started growing and morphing into this thing that really truly looked like a cloud. Even The Captain was impressed– AND THAT TAKES ALOT. He even suggested the kids smoosh up the soap in a glob and try it a second time. It did work the second time and even a third with the same bar of soap. Although, the subsequent attempts were less impressive.

I assume it works with Ivory soap because of the same reason it floats– the soap has air in it! In the microwave the air heats up and expands and then pushes the soap apart. Clumping it back together doesn’t really do anything to make it happen again. It is simply expanding any air left in the soap that was not freed during the first or second attempts to nuke the soap. Or at least, that’s what my middle school science knowledge is telling me. I could be 100% wrong and I welcome ANYONE to correct me.

Next it was on to this cute Winnie-the-pooh activity pack from our friends at Disney Family! The pack was actually a good combination of activities for Cinco and The Princess. The Princess did the dot-to-dot beehive and color page. Cinco worked on the word search and crossword puzzle. Both worked together on the Pooh Mad Libs (with a little help from mom).